After Le Yi’s death, there was only one performer left in the underground circus.
Jiang He transmitted all sorts of clinical data abroad, and the other side promised to provide her with the latest batch of drugs within two months, maximizing the extension of her life.
Jiang He smiled more frequently. She would often stroke Pingping’s hair and say that if she behaved well, she would treat her eyes.
Pingping never replied.
Now that she was no longer confined to the vase, Jiang He no longer gave her mere injections; all medical interventions were the very best. On top of that, Pingping had only mild rejection symptoms after her surgery, so she miraculously survived. But she felt no gratitude—she knew all of Jiang He’s meticulous care had a purpose.
It was to better draw Le Yi’s blood from her.
The blood within her that had once belonged to Le Yi.
Jiang He treated Pingping almost as if she were her own daughter. In the third week after all her companions had died, numb and silent, Pingping had a dream—a dream both blissful and agonizing.
Afterwards, she began to run a fever, burning so hot that her mind wandered and she started to ramble. Jiang He tried everything, but nothing could lower her temperature.
Jiang He thought it was a rejection after the bone marrow transplant, worrying nonstop for an entire week. Just as she was resigning herself to failure, Pingping’s fever suddenly lifted.
It was nothing short of a miracle.
Pingping opened her eyes.
Jiang He, overjoyed, rushed forward, joined by four or five medical staff who began promptly examining her.
All vital signs were normal.
Jiang He exhaled deeply in relief. She tried to stroke Pingping’s hair as she had in previous days, but the moment their eyes met, she suddenly froze.
Pingping, though blind, was looking at her with startling clarity.
Jiang He hesitated, “Pingping?”
Pingping lay silent for a long while.
So long that Jiang He feared the fever had left her voiceless.
But eventually, she spoke.
“You will die in excruciating pain.”
Pingping whispered from her hospital bed, “Your body will be hidden under the riverbed by your family. Your soul will never reach the shore.”
Jiang He did not react at first.
The other medical staff did—quickly moving to cover Pingping’s mouth.
“I don’t want to see any of you.”
And everything slowed, as if in a dream. Everyone, including Jiang He, turned and left the room at a painstaking pace.
The medical staff exited the ward, each returning to their work; Jiang He went to the director’s office, packed up her things, and went straight home.
Pingping lay flat on the hospital bed.
Her tears trickled unconsciously, soaking into the pillowcase.
With just a few lines, her mutilated limbs miraculously regrew. Her eyes regained sight. She could finally see the river. But at the very instant she gained her vision, she could no longer see the vibrant river of her dreams.
It felt as if she’d suddenly gained many new memories, learned many things.
After her physical makeup was broken down and rebuilt, after an infusion of foreign blood, her spiritual body mutated—at age nine, she awakened to psychic powers.
Powers at the very peak of the discipline.
And such extraordinary gifts came with inherited memories; she instinctively knew how to employ them and understood the limitations.
—The past could not be undone.
—One could not hope to alter what was destined to happen.
—She could only use these powers within preordained limits.
—She could not use them on those more powerful than herself.
But Pingping wanted to try, regardless.
“I want them all to come back,” she whispered.
She waited a long time.
Nothing happened.
So she said softly again:
“I want them all to come back to life.”
“To appear in this room.”
“Just like before.”
“To come back to life.”
Her murmurs carried on, but the room remained empty. Aside from Pingping, there was no one.
This futile attempt lasted ages until Pingping broke down and sobbed in the empty room. At last, she slowly sat up, hugged her knees to her chest, pressed her face to her palms, curling herself into a tiny ball.
She thought for a long time, from dusk until dawn.
She remembered being cradled in her mother’s arms, remembered being purchased by Jiang He and taken to the basement, remembered the joy of first meeting her four companions, remembered Le Yao’s radiant, passionate smile; recalled Xiao Jia’s gentle voice, remembered Xiao Tian’s ever-present magic tricks, remembered Le Yi’s nightly theft of a ring of keys for her.
She loved them.
Loved them deeply.
Pingping dried her tears and began to make new wishes.
“Just their bodies will do,” she whispered. “Even without souls is fine.”
So the children’s bodies appeared in the room, standing in the darkness—more terrifying than anything out of a horror film. Yet Pingping was unafraid.
“I’ll be your souls,” she whispered, “From now on, we’ll live in a big house, and go to school.”
She remembered Xiao Tian’s wish, so she made him chubby.
She remembered Le Yi’s wish, too.
Le Yi had wished not to be reincarnated, so Pingping debated this for a long time, and in the end did not make Le Yi’s body appear.
But she missed Le Yi terribly, so she changed her own face to resemble Le Yi’s.
Let the world believe Pingping was dead.
Pingping became greedy; she could not stop making wishes.
“I want Le Yao-jie’s heart.”
Parts of everyone’s bodies had been sold by Jiang He—Pingping would not accept that. The rest could be fake, but she needed something real.
“I want Xiao Jia’s liver and lungs.”
“And Xiao Tian’s eyes.”
Each word Pingping spoke was filled with pious devotion.
This way, plus Le Yi’s face, all of them could live on inside her.
Day broke.
Pingping sat by the window, hugging her knees. For many years, she had always seemed vulnerable and fragile, suffering much, but never feeling too much misery—because she’d always had many friends.
Now that she was strong, she felt a loneliness and pain greater than ever.
Jiang He would never appear again, but so many others who shouldn’t exist still lingered. Every medical staff member at Baishan Sanatorium deserved to die.
They were the ones who had severed her limbs, the ones who had cut open her friends’ chests. They were unworthy of happy lives.
But death is far too simple a punishment.
There were only a few terminal patients left at Baishan Sanatorium. Pingping accompanied them through their final months, then began to ponder how the medical staff should die.
Pingping had not met many people. To fool the world and create the illusion that Baishan Sanatorium operated normally, she conjured a group of long-dead people to act as patients. She couldn’t invent entirely new faces, so all the patients resembled people she’d seen in old newspapers.
She altered the memories of the staff, making them forget their time at the black clinic, forget the illegal clinical experiments, forget the true identities of the children, and believe that every patient really existed.
She often stood on the top floor, watching the medical staff abuse these conjured dead; she saw that even with their malicious pasts purged from memory, they remained selfish and cruel.
Pingping carefully recalled what each of them had done.
Some had held Xiao Jia underwater. Some, as punishment, had ripped out Xiao Tian’s breathing tube. Some helped Jiang He bury the children’s bodies. Some assisted in the blood transfusions linking her and Le Yi.
After much thought, Pingping decided to create a game arena.
The time was set for every Sunday at midnight, ending at six in the morning.
Because that had been the time of their performances at the underground circus.
The game was simple: hunt the white mice.
Because all the children had once been white mice. Now, Pingping wanted everyone’s roles reversed.
From January until May, every Sunday, Pingping and her companions would hunt white mice together—sometimes earnestly, sometimes just to enjoy their frantic, ugly panic.
She watched those people, desperate and despairing, as they scurried and hid—just as her friends had once lain helpless on the operating table, sliced apart at will.
The game continued for months, and the number of staff dwindled. Though they had families who would alert the police to their disappearances, Pingping’s powers were formidable. Each time the Public Security Bureau came to investigate, they pulled the wrong conclusions.
Pingping had the power to blind the eyes of all and to turn every story into an unresolved case.
She had it all planned; once the staff had “gotten what they deserved,” she would take her three remaining friends and leave Baishan Sanatorium. They would live together, go to school together, eat chips and watch movies together.
The four of them would spend their lives in mutual companionship.
Pingping knew her mind had twisted, but how else could it be? With Le Yao’s heart beating in her chest, she felt that only this made her life a little warmer.
Only this brought her the faintest warmth.
And yet, even such a simple wish was disrupted by outsiders.
A girl collapsed at the gates of Baishan Sanatorium, and soon after, another with a similar constitution arrived.
The sanatorium was under investigation.
Pingping feared her secrets would be uncovered, or that the newcomer would be even more powerful.
But fortunately, after a brief exchange, she quickly gained control over the visitor and learned that a psychic competition show would be held here.
To learn the content of the competition, she watched the first three episodes on the woman’s phone.
She learned that a girl on the show was skilled at binding spirits, that her twin was adept at summoning them, that one contestant’s constitution brought misfortune to those around her, and that there was a formidable woman—certain to be her greatest threat.
So Pingping decided to share a ward with this woman.
She rewrote the rules of the game, altered the medical staff’s memories so they forgot they themselves were white mice, and tentatively used her psychic ability to command the woman named Jiang Yan to put on a patient gown.
But Jiang Yan was unaffected.
She eyed the clothing with distaste, and only after a long while did she choose to wear it.
During the time Jiang Yan went to the bathroom to change, Pingping’s heart pounded. Since gaining her psychic ability, it was the first time she’d met someone she could not influence.
Because of Jiang Yan, she dared not try to control the other psychics either.
Her mind raced, and in the end, she decided to cooperate with their mission.
—To pretend this really was a so-called semi-energy field, to pretend there really was a spirit behind Baishan Sanatorium. Fortunately, fate had treated them harshly—their innumerable miseries all begged to be revealed.
She optimistically thought that, in truth, this competition was also an opportunity.
Once their stories came to light, they would be pitied and rescued, gaining a real, legally recognized identity at last.
She thought and thought.
Thought about everything.
She pondered how to make the game look credible, how to make it believable that Pingping was dead, how best to impersonate Le Yi, how to link the spirit behind everything to be either Jiang He or Pingping—or both, if necessary.
As long as the other psychics believed everyone else was alive, that was enough.
Living, even falsely, was still living.
Because she truly couldn’t leave them—not even for a second.
*
After Jiang Yan finished saying, “You can’t control their bodies for the rest of your life,” she waited for Pingping’s response.
Pingping gazed at Jiang Yan calmly.
No longer trying to act as Le Yi, she had lost that off-putting yet curiously powerful aura and seemed trapped, unable to step out.
“You’ve overdone it,” Jiang Yan explained. “To make them look normal, you tried too hard.”
“For example, you kept having the other patients be controlled to highlight how normal your companions were—especially in the garden. The way everyone else was odd except Xiao Jia and Xiao Tian, who called for my help, was just too out of place.”
“And Xiao Jia’s surgical scar,” Jiang Yan added, “That’s not what an appendectomy scar looks like. Considering what Sun Xinzhi said about performing surgery on all the children, it probably wasn’t a gentle procedure.”
Jiang Yan asked Pingping, “Why not remove their surgical scars?”
That would lower the risk of exposure, after all.
Pingping stayed silent for a long while.
At length, she replied, “Because the scars are real.”
There are too many things that are fake. There has to be something that’s real.
With scars, they have a past. And with a past, they remain human.